


my heart is a piece of your soul

by kalypsobean



Category: Awake (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, Mental Health Issues, Soulmates, soulbonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:03:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7236520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>what if, in the world where she died, she is still alive?<br/>what if, in the world where she lived, it's as if she never was?</p>
            </blockquote>





	my heart is a piece of your soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribblemyname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/gifts).



"You should work on giving up your son, moving on. He isn't coming back." 

He doesn't hear it, not in the way Dr Lee means it. The worlds, however they fit together, aren't like that. It's not as simple as dreaming what he doesn't have, never truly sleeping so his brain won't process memories the same, causing the worlds to blur and split so he can't tell them apart. That isn't what it is.

He can't explain it, to either of them, or to anyone. He tried, when he was sure they were separate and he moved between them, and Dr Evans was understanding but placating. She spun it out as a scenario, a hypothetical that moved increasingly far from the truth, until it was useless as anything but a story, another what-if that hadn't become real. Dr Lee thought it was transference, his grief at one loss manifesting as another one, as if it was too big to be contained and his brain was trying to show him the alternative, to make sense of the dreams and the worlds so that he could see what has been lost, who was gone and who was left.

 

"Your wife is dead. You have a son. You need to be there for him." But it's not like that. He wants to tell her it's not that simple, but he knows she won't be able to understand. He can't find anyone, here or there, who knows what he means when he says he can't let her go, that she isn't dead, that he can feel her. 

 

It used to be that he knew where he was because of the rubber band. Red for her, green for him. Each difference was mapped to a colour. It was easy that way, because if he wasn't sure, he could pick up something or swat away an imaginary fly, and seeing his wrist would ground him. He even snapped the band, when the worlds started breaking down, as if the sting brought him back out of his thoughts and to where he could see the line again. 

Red for Rex is dead.

Green for Hannah is away.

 

He didn't notice it for a while, not in the way he knows it now; between Dr Lee and Dr Evans and just trying to survive and understand, he knew that he experienced grief differently for each one. It affected how he acted, what he did, what he tried to find; he was looking for the same answers to different questions. He took care of Rex and he fought for Hannah. 

In Hannah's world, he didn't feel the pain in his chest, and the headaches went away. 

In Rex's world, they slipped back in, between the cracks and the blanks, until he wished he could sleep, just so they would stop. He couldn't let on, of course, because he couldn't risk his job. He wanted to be seen as improving, as stronger - a good father, a good cop, coping as best he could; he hid them as best as he could.

 

It was when the worlds started breaking down, coming closer and twisting around each other until what happened in one affected the other, that he realised it was him. He keeps the bands, but he knows where he is because he either feels that she's gone, or he feels that she's there. When the world starts speaking to him, when things stop making sense without the other one, it's the worst of all. 

It's as if, somehow, he's being pulled to her, and he can't let her go. Dr Lee is wrong; it's not his grief for his son that's making this happen. But Dr Evans isn't right; he doesn't have to live without Hannah.

"I think we were soulmates," he tells her, when it finally feels like, if nothing else, he understands why this is happening, and why him. 

"Of course you were," she says. "That's why it's so hard."

 

All he has to do is wait; if facts cross over, then eventually, Hannah will too. He can only guess that she can't feel it, not like this. It was never like that, with them, anyway; they were comfortable, close, but never inseparable. It's only now that he even knows what it is like without her that he looks for signs, clues, anything to say that it's still there as she allows him closer to her again. There are small things - touches that feel electric, as if energy passes between them; smiles that come with sadness so great that it can't possibly come from just one lifetime or two; knowing things that were insignificant long ago, or were never mentioned at all. 

 

"Perhaps, in renewing your relationship with your wife, you're allowing yourself to accept that your son is gone. This is a good sign."

Sometimes he doesn't know why he doesn't punch Dr Lee; there aren't any good signs or bad signs, now; things just are. Part of that is that, for some reason, he's holding two separate lives together. 

He could say that the pain is because he's exhausted; his mind never sleeps, although he dreams, within dreams, as if it's reaching out beyond the two lives he already has, as if he's subconsciously looking for something he'll only know when he finds it. He can't call them pieces; they're not incomplete, but separately, they're discomfortingly wrong. He could say that he's looking for reasons to hold on to Hannah, because everyone else seems to be moving on without her and he doesn't want to be the only one who remembers how things were. 

 

Instead he says what he was told to say, and holds on to the lack of pain, because in here, it's the only thing he has of her.

"This is all I can do for you, you understand?" Vega had said. _"It's not safe for you,"_ he may as well have said, but instead Michael closed his eyes and let Vega walk out of the visiting room. The lawyer stayed, managing to look both stunned and competent. "Have you had access to a mental health professional during your incarceration?" she says, and he can't place her voice, at first, until she reaches up and pulls the band out of her hair, snapping it on her wrist as her hair falls down by her face, briefly, before she pulls it back again. It was long enough to make a silhouette he recognises.

It's not the first time someone's been different in one place than the other, but it's the first time it's been someone who wasn't there before, in some way. 

 

She gets him out, in a process he doesn't understand; it shouldn't apply to him, but she makes it sound reasonable, simple, sensible, and then he's left with Hannah outside the courthouse, a copy of an order to attend counselling sessions once a week, and he's lost his job, but there's no pain. There is nothing different here but himself.

 

He sees Rex waiting in the car, but he blinks, and Rex is gone when Hannah slides her hand into his. He wants to say something, but his mouth is too dry, and the band is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Warring doctors + soulmates + Vega getting Michael out of jail + string theory = soul bonds are strong enough to cross worldlines.


End file.
